The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy eBook

It was then that she came to Telemachus in Sparta
and counselled him to leave the house of Menelaus
and Helen; and it has been told how he went with Peisistratus,
the son of Nestor, and came to his own ship. His
ship was hailed by a man who was flying from those
who would slay him, and this man Telemachus took aboard.
The stranger’s name was Theoclymenus, and he
was a sooth-sayer and a second-sighted man.

And Telemachus, returning to Ithaka, was in peril
of his life. The wooers of his mother had discovered
that he had gone from Ithaka in a ship. Two of
the wooers, Antinous and Eurymachus, were greatly angered
at the daring act of the youth. ‘He has
gone to Sparta for help,’ Antinous said, ’and
if he finds that there are those who will help him
we will not be able to stand against his pride.
He will make us suffer for what we have wasted in
his house. But let us too act. I will take
a ship with twenty men, and lie in wait for him in
a strait between Ithaka and Samos, and put an end
to his search for his father.’

Thereupon Antinous took twenty men to a ship, and
fixing mast and sails they went over the sea.
There is a little isle between Ithaka and Samos—­Asteris
it is called—­and in the harbour of that
isle he and his men lay in wait for Telemachus.

VIII

Near the place where Odysseus had landed there lived
an old man who was a faithful servant in his house.
Eumaeus was his name, and he was a swineherd.
He had made for himself a dwelling in the wildest part
of the island, and had built a wall round it, and
had made for the swine pens in the courtyard—­twelve
pens, and in each pen there were fifty swine.
Old Eumaeus lived in this place tending the swine with
three young men to help him. The swine-pens were
guarded by four dogs that were as fierce as the beasts
of the forest.

As he came near the dogs dashed at him, yelping and
snapping; and Odysseus might have suffered foul hurt
if the swineherd had not run out of the courtyard
and driven the fierce dogs away. Seeing before
him one who looked an ancient beggar, Eumaeus said,
’Old man, it is well that my dogs did not tear
thee, for they might have brought upon me the shame
of thy death. I have grief and pains enough,
the gods know, without such a happening. Here
I sit, mourning for my noble master, and fattening
hogs for others to eat, while he, mayhap, is wandering
in hunger through some friendless city. But come
in, old man. I have bread and wine to give thee.’

The swineherd led the seeming beggar into the courtyard,
and he let him sit down on a heap of brushwood, and
spread for him a shaggy goat-skin. Odysseus was
glad of his servant’s welcome, and he said, ’May
Zeus and all the other gods grant thee thy heart’s
dearest wish for the welcome that thou hast given
to me.’

Said Eumaeus the swineherd, ’A good man looks
on all strangers and beggars as being from Zeus himself.
And my heart’s dearest wish is that my master
Odysseus should return. Ah, if Odysseus were here,
he would give me something which I could hold as mine
own—­a piece of ground to till, and a wife
to comfort me. But my master will not return,
and we thralls must go in fear when young lords come
to rule it over them.’